Manor of Secrets by Katherine Longshore.

This book is: unremarkable.Other elements: class differences, rich people acting badly.Read it: if you like the idea of very watered down Downton Abbey.Overall rating: 4.25/10

This book did absolutely nothing for me. From page one, everything that I expected to happen happened. Every character did what I thought they would do for the usual reasons. Nothing stood out as original, remarkable, or noteworthy.

As with many upstairs/downstairs types of stories, Manor of Secrets centered upon a privileged character and her lower class foil. In this case, the privileged character was revoltingly selfish, short-sighted, naive, and stupid. The lower class foil character was less selfish, but even more naive and short-sighted. Serious cases of TSTL all around.The turn-of-the-century manor house setting – which is what drew me in, to be honest – flat entirely flat.

I just didn’t understand the author’s goal in setting this story in the past and then having the characters use words like “stellar,” and sing songs that were written in the 1960’s. It was jarring and off-putting to find myself wondering mid-novel if it was supposed to be satire or not (the verdict: not). Maybe those elements were written out before the final version went to publication;I certainly hope so.

In short: I picked this up hoping that it would be a fun, mindless read. I was half right, but sadly not the half that would mean I enjoyed myself. If it had been longer, this would be a DNF.I would also not be me if I didn’t tell you that the clunky pearl necklace the girl on the cover is wearing is wildly uncharacteristic for a young heiress in the era in which this ostensibly takes place. She should be wearing something like this or this or this.

My thanks to NetGalley and Scholastic for providing me with a copy of this book for review.